[62ohm]

The thread title basically sums up my question. I got all of my lossless collection from CDs, and the quality really varies between an album and another. Recordings and masterings factor aside, does the quality of CD-Rom used to rip the CDs matter significantly on the inconsistency of quality?
 
I'm using some $50 Asus DVD-RW, do I need to upgrade or get a dedicated equipment to rip CDs? Thanks in advance.

 

[kookoo]

Nope, the CD ROM just reads the bits. If the CDROM cannot read the cd then it will not rip

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

^^ +1.
 
Most of the popular rippers, such as foobar and EAC, make use of a handy utility called AccurateRip. This compares your rip to everyone else's. So if you get a pass, and you usually do,  then you can be 100% sure the bits stored on your hard drive  are identical to the bits on your CD when it first left the factory. Forever.
 
Red Book CD audio standard allows a certain number of misreads or errors before the CD refuses to play any more. So if you have a load of CDs in very poor condition it may be possible that a more expensive drive will recover more than another.
 
However in these circumstances it might be easier and cheaper to either live with it or get a new CD.

 

[C.C.S.]

  The thread title basically sums up my question. I got all of my lossless collection from CDs, and the quality really varies between an album and another. Recordings and masterings factor aside, does the quality of CD-Rom used to rip the CDs matter significantly on the inconsistency of quality?
 
I'm using some $50 Asus DVD-RW, do I need to upgrade or get a dedicated equipment to rip CDs? Thanks in advance.

 
If you're getting lower quality rips on some albums, I'd guess that this has more to do with the condition of some of the discs. Discs that are very scratched or damaged will, from time to time, affect the quality of the rip. Are you sure, though, that this isn't because of the recording quality or the masters from which the cds were made?

 

[62ohm]

  ^^ +1.
 
Most of the popular rippers, such as foobar and EAC, make use of a handy utility called AccurateRip. This compares your rip to everyone else's. So if you get a pass, and you usually do,  then you can be 100% sure the bits stored on your hard drive  are identical to the bits on your CD when it first left the factory. Forever.
 
Red Book CD audio standard allows a certain number of misreads or errors before the CD refuses to play any more. So if you have a load of CDs in very poor condition it may be possible that a more expensive drive will recover more than another.
 
However in these circumstances it might be easier and cheaper to either live with it or get a new CD.

 
I use Windows Media Player to rip all my CDs into WAV lossless, are they any good?
 

   
If you're getting lower quality rips on some albums, I'd guess that this has more to do with the condition of some of the discs. Discs that are very scratched or damaged will, from time to time, affect the quality of the rip. Are you sure, though, that this isn't because of the recording quality or the masters from which the cds were made?

 
Well that should be it, since all of my bad sounding files came from a secondhand sale CDs lol

 

[62ohm]

Originally Posted by 62ohm /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 

  Most of the popular rippers, such as foobar and EAC, make use of a handy utility called AccurateRip. This compares your rip to everyone else's. So if you get a pass, and you usually do,  then you can be 100% sure the bits stored on your hard drive  are identical to the bits on your CD when it first left the factory. Forever.
 

 
I use Windows Media Player to rip all my CDs into WAV lossless, are they any good?
 

 
bump.

 

[cswann1]

   
I use Windows Media Player to rip all my CDs into WAV lossless, are they any good?
 
 

 
Yes, that's a very viable, if not feature-rich, solution for archiving your CD's.  But there are much more advanced tools available at no cost.
 
Here's what I use:
 
Exact Audio Copy - Ripping software
FLAC - Lossless compression 
Lame .mp3 - lossy compression
MP3TAG  - Tag editor software
 
EAC is a fairly advanced tool for ripping audio from CD and it can be a little intimidating at first, but there are some very good tutorials.  You have a lot of control over pretty much every facet of the ripping process.  By default, EAC will rip to .wav uncompressed lossless. But you can configure it to use whatever compression algorithm you want.  I use FLAC for things that I want a high degree of quality on and LAME .mp3 for when space is a concern, like for music to go on my phones SD card.

 

[62ohm]

   
Yes, that's a very viable, if not feature-rich, solution for archiving your CD's.  But there are much more advanced tools available at no cost.
 
Here's what I use:
 
Exact Audio Copy - Ripping software
FLAC - Lossless compression 
Lame .mp3 - lossy compression
MP3TAG  - Tag editor software
 
EAC is a fairly advanced tool for ripping audio from CD and it can be a little intimidating at first, but there are some very good tutorials.  You have a lot of control over pretty much every facet of the ripping process.  By default, EAC will rip to .wav uncompressed lossless. But you can configure it to use whatever compression algorithm you want.  I use FLAC for things that I want a high degree of quality on and LAME .mp3 for when space is a concern, like for music to go on my phones SD card.

 
Quality wise though, do they make for a significant difference compared to WMP?

 

[62ohm]

 

   
I use Windows Media Player to rip all my CDs into WAV lossless, are they any good?
 

 

 
Yes, that's a very viable, if not feature-rich, solution for archiving your CD's.  But there are much more advanced tools available at no cost.
 
Here's what I use:
 
Exact Audio Copy - Ripping software
FLAC - Lossless compression 
Lame .mp3 - lossy compression
MP3TAG  - Tag editor software
 
EAC is a fairly advanced tool for ripping audio from CD and it can be a little intimidating at first, but there are some very good tutorials.  You have a lot of control over pretty much every facet of the ripping process.  By default, EAC will rip to .wav uncompressed lossless. But you can configure it to use whatever compression algorithm you want.  I use FLAC for things that I want a high degree of quality on and LAME .mp3 for when space is a concern, like for music to go on my phones SD card.

 
Quality wise though, do they make for a significant difference compared to WMP?

 
 
Bump. Anyone?

 

[Roseval]

I use Windows Media Player to rip all my CDs into WAV lossless, are they any good?

 
I know that WMP11 is very poor in tagging WAV.
If this has not changed in WPM12 it means that your tracks are only tagged at rip time and all subsequent changes are library only.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/WMP/WAV.htm
 
If you move your files to another PC or your library gets corrupted, almost all of the tagging will be lost.

 

[62ohm]

   
I know that WMP11 is very poor in tagging WAV.
If this has not changed in WPM12 it means that your tracks are only tagged at rip time and all subsequent changes are library only.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/WMP/WAV.htm
 
If you move your files to another PC or your library gets corrupted, almost all of the tagging will be lost.

 
Regarding tagging, every time I rip an album the first track of the album doesn't get tagged, I'd have to tag it manually. But that's the only problem I have regarding tagging.

 

[Roseval]

Maybe it was specific to WMP11
However, just to make sure, transfer a WAV to another PC and load it in WMP.
If all the tags carry over, you are fine.
 
You might have a look at media players able to tag the first track as well
MusicBee is a nice one.
It has accuraterip support and tags all your tracks